Digital Commons Network^™

Declining Homicide In New York City: A Tale Of Two Trends, Jeffery Fagan, Franklin E. Zimring, June Kim

Faculty Scholarship

The mass media pay plenty of attention to crime and violence in the United States, but very few of the big stories on the American crime beat can be classified as good news. The driveby shootings and carjackings that illuminate nightly news broadcasts are the opposite of good tidings. Most efforts at prevention and law enforcement seem more like reactive attempts to contain ever expanding problems rather than discernable public triumphs. In recent American history, crime rates seem to increase on the front page and moderate in obscurity.

The recent decline in homicides in New York City is an exception …

A Constitution Of Democratic Experimentalism, Michael C. Dorf, Charles F. Sabel

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professors Dorf and Sabel identify a new form of government, democratic experimentalism, in which power is decentralized to enable citizens and other actors to utilize their local knowledge to fit solutions to their individual circumstances, but in which regional and national coordinating bodies require actors to share their knowledge with others facing similar problems. This information pooling, informed by the example of novel kinds of coordination within and among private firms, both increases the efficiency of public administration by encouraging mutual learning among its parts and heightens its accountability through participation of citizens in the decisions …

Autonomy Through Separation?: Environmental Law And The Basic Law Of Hong Kong, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

One hundred days after taking office as Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR) of the People's Republic of China, Tung Chee-hwa pledged both to take steps to improve Hong Kong's environment, and to increase coordination of environmental policy with officials in neighboring Guangdong Province. Tung's comments marked a rhetorical shift from environmental policy in British Hong Kong: eight years earlier, the Hong Kong government's first White Paper on environmental policy, Pollution in Hong Kong – A Time to Act, made only passing mention of China. Yet the White Paper was not alone in …

Is There A Future For Future Claimants After Amchem Products, Inc. V. Windsor?, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

In September 1990, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Asbestos Litigation in response to what was widely perceived as a "'failure of the federal court system to perform one of its vital roles in our society.'" Less than a year later, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred all untried asbestos cases to the eastern district of Pennsylvania for pretrial proceedings. In January 1993, these proceedings produced a global settlement class action of historic proportions, which the district court eventually approved in August 1994. In May 1996, in Georgine v. Amchem Products, …

Marriage As Relational Contract, Elizabeth S. Scott, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The evolution of marriage from a relationship based on status to one that is regulated by contractual norms achieved a milestone of sorts recently with the enactment of the Louisiana Covenant Marriage Act. Under this statute, couples entering marriage can choose to have the termination of their relationship regulated under conventional no-fault divorce rules, or they can voluntarily undertake a greater commitment to their marriage. For couples who select covenant marriage, either party can terminate the relationship on fault grounds, but unilateral termination of the marriage is available only after a substantial waiting period. The principal impact of the statute …

Dogmas Of The Model Penal Code, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The Model Penal Code has become the central document of American criminal justice. It has had some effect on law reform in over 35 states. More significantly, it provides the lingua franca of most people who teach criminal law in the United States. Most academics think that the precise definitions of culpability states in section 2.02(2) are really neat, and they applaud the liberal rules that restrict the use of strict liability to administrative fines. Indeed, all things considered, for a code drafted with almost total indifference to what might be learned from European models, the Model Penal Code is …

The Fall And Rise Of Criminal Theory, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

These are good times – at least for the theory of criminal law. This special issue of Buffalo Criminal Law Review testifies to a remarkable surge of interest among younger scholars in perennial questions: Why should we punish offenders? Do we require a human act as a precondition for liability and what is its structure? What does it mean for someone to be guilty or culpable for committing an offense? How do we avoid contradictions in structuring the criteria of liability? The time has come for renewed intensity in pondering and discussing these basic issues.

The contributions of this symposium …

Putting Sex To Work, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

When I was living in New Haven a number of years ago, a miracle happened that drew people by the thousands to witness evidence of the Divine. A crucifix had been found to appear in the body of an oak tree in the middle of Worchester Square. I went – after all, how often do you get to see that kind of thing? Not surprisingly, at first I couldn't see anything but the usual trunk and limbs of a tree. Yet a believer took the time to show me what was really there, something that my untrained eye could not …

Does The Constitution Require That We Kill The Competitive Goose? Pricing Local Phone Services To Rivals, William J. Baumol, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

This Article concludes a series by these authors and Professors J. Gregory Sidak and Daniel F. Spulber, published last year in this journal. Here, Professors Baumol and Merrill address the issues surrounding the pricing of local phone services to long distance rivals, clarifying their points of agreement and disagreement with Sidak and Spulber. In their previous articles, Sidak and Spulber argued that the movement toward competition in local telephone service should be accompanied by substantial compensation to existing local telephone carriers, a view that Baumol and Merrill do not share. Rather, they note three points of disagreement between Sidak and …

Towards A Model Penal Code, Second (Federal?): The Challenge Of The Special Part, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

The Model Penal Code is among the most successful academic law reform projects ever attempted. In the first two decades after its completion in 1962, more than two-thirds of the states undertook to enact new codifications of their criminal law, and virtually all of those used the Model Penal Code as a starting point. The Model Penal Code was influential in a variety of different ways. First, the very notion of a systematic codification of criminal law received a dramatic boost from the Model Penal Code. Apart from the degree to which any particular state recodification resembled the Model Penal …

Conflicts Of Interest In Scientific Expert Testimony, Mark R. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

Conflicts of interest have significant implications for the reliability of scientific expert testimony. However, the courts' treatment of conflicts is not always in accord either with the treatment of conflicts in scientific practice or with the particular problems that scientists' conflicts present in court. In response, this Article proposes two basic changes in the treatment of scientific expert testimony. First, courts should strive to separate issues of bias from issues of scientific validity-the two sets of issues are now conflated at times. Second, courts should pay more attention to biases of scientists who perform the research underlying expert testimony, whereas …

Informed Consent In Mediation: A Guiding Principle For Truly Educated Decisionmaking , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

Informed consent has a central role to play in mediation. Without it, mediation's promises of autonomy and self-determination are empty. This Article has given the theoretical and policy justifications for a reform of mediation practice that honors the principle of informed consent. I have argued for a contextualized approach that takes into account mediation's location, the voluntariness of the parties' consent, and their representational status. This kind of analysis will lead to a more informed practice of mediation decisionmaking than exists currently and provide a perspective that can more prudently guide a mediator's conduct. The proposed approach promotes greater fairness …

Political Power Of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing And The Courts In Modern England, 1871-Present, The , Rachel Vorspan

Faculty Scholarship

This inquiry, a comprehensive historical study of the impact of nuisance law on labor picketing in England, comprises six sections. Part I introduces general principles of labor law and nuisance law in the nineteenth century, particularly the legislative scheme of "collective laissezfaire" that emerged after 1871 and remained relatively intact until 1980. Part II examines the use of nuisance doctrines against picketers in the first phase of confrontational picketing from 1889 to 1906, when the appearance of militant unions representing unskilled workers stimulated inventive judicial responses in both private and public nuisance. Part III investigates the much heralded judicial and …

Lawyering In The State Of Nature: Instinct And Automaticity In Legal Problem Solving , Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

This article explains why lawyers do not think or talk like other people, how they got this way, and why this is both a good thing and a bad thing. I have watched hundreds of law students leave their old ways of thinking and talking behind and begin to sound like lawyers. One marker of the progress from lay person to lawyer is the emergence of the ability to tell a coherent fact and law story about a new legal problem. I have sometimes celebrated this professional progress and sometimes lamented the loss of common sense, but my lawyerly analysis …

Defining And Punishing Abroad: Constitutional Limits On The Extraterritorial Reach Of The Offenses Clause Note, Zephyr Teachout

Faculty Scholarship

The Offenses Clause of the United States Constitution gives Congress the authority to "define and punish... Offences against the Law of Nations." This Note considers whether Congress must conform to the jurisdictional rules of customary international law when legislating pursuant to the Offenses Clause.

The Abcs Of Adr: Making Adr Work In Your Court System, Nancy A. Welsh, Barbara Mcadoo

Faculty Scholarship

So you are thinking about making Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) a part of your existing statewide judicial process-but you don't know how. You want to provide litigants with alternative ways to resolve their disputes, through processes such as mediation, arbitration, and summary jury trials. In fact, you have been experimenting with these processes on an ad hoc basis and have had quite a few successes. You think you could accomplish even more if you made ADR a routine part of the judicial process. But you are cautious about the role that your state court system should take in promoting and …

Toward Understanding Global Governance: The International Law And International Relations Toolbox, Charlotte Ku, Thomas George Weiss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Original Sin And The Transaction In Federal Civil Procedure, Mary Kay Kane

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Puzzling Persistence Of Pleading Practice, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Personhood Argument Against Polygraph Evidence, Or "Even If The Polygraph Really Works, Will Courts Admit The Results?", James R. Mccall

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Should The Family Be Represented As An Entity?: Reexamining The Family Values Of Legal Ethics, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tax Expenditure Analysis And Constitutional Decisions , Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

This article looks at the significance of the similarities and differences between tax benefits and direct spending for purposes of the equal protection and establishment clauses, with a particular focus on the charitable contribution deduction. Because economic equivalence is not critical under these constitutional provisions, tax expenditure analysis is not relevant to the legal analysis. While this article deals only briefly with numerous provisions of the Code and analyzes only two constitutional provisions, it provides a model for considering the constitutionality of any tax provision.

Guns, Youth Violence, And Social Identity In Inner Cities, Jeffrey Fagan, Deanna L. Wilkinson

Faculty Scholarship

While youth violence has always been a critical part of delinquency, the modern epidemic is marked by high rates of gun violence. Adolescents in cities possess and carry guns on a large scale, guns are often at the scene of youth violence, and guns often are used. Guns play a central role in initiating, sustaining, and elevating the epidemic of youth violence. The demand for guns among youth was fueled by an "ecology of danger," comprising street gangs, expanding drug markets with high intrinsic levels of violence, high rates of adult violence and fatalities, and cultural styles of gun possession …

Derivatives, Corporate Hedging, And Shareholder Wealth: Modigliani-Miller Forty Years Later, Kimberly D. Krawiec

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Province And Duty Of The Political Departments, H. Jefferson Powell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Quo Vadis, Posadas?, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This examination looks at Virginia's ban on speech advertising motorcycles and revisits the question raised in the Posadas decision - may a state ban speech about a legal product the state could ban if it so desired. This article uses comparisons to the government employee speech cases to further illuminate the issue.

The New Etiquette Of Federalism: New York, Printz And Yeskey, Matthew D. Adler, Seth F. Kreimer

Faculty Scholarship

In New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), the Court revived "state sovereignty" as a justiciable constitutional constraint on federal mandates, and struck down portions of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act on the grounds that the statute impermissibly "commandeered" state governments. Printz v. United States, 117 S.Ct. 2365 (1997), confirmed the anti-commandeering principle and relied upon it to invalidate elements of another federal statute, the Brady Act. This Article analyzes and criticizes the anti-commandeering jurisprudence, as it has emerged in New York, Printz, and a case decided by the Court last Term, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections …

Life Before The Modern Sex Offender Statutes , Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the social and legal developments that fueled the origins and recurring problems of sex offender laws. Part I of this Article discusses the primary precursors of the sexual psychopath statutes that encouraged the public's and politicians' acceptance of the concept of sexual psychopathy: the increasing sexualization of American society, changes in gender roles and relations, the valuation of children and the family unit, and the influx of psychiatry. Part II describes how the diagnosis of sexual psychopathy slowly developed as a result of the criminal justice system's growing tendency to explain criminal behavior in psychoanalytic terms. Part …

Rights, Wrongs, And Recourse In The Law Of Torts, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Moral Of Macpherson, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.